Juan Carlos Unzué has today received the XII Legend Dorsal of Sevilla FC. For his seven-year sports career in Nervión, but also for having become an example of struggle and love for life after announcing almost two years ago that he suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative disease that he is helping to give visibility.
The Navarrese exporter put the finishing touch to the act with an emotional speech in which he thanked the affection of Sevilla and Sevilla. “Thanks to those who have decided to make it the Dorsal de Leyenda, the club in which I have spent the most seasons and in which I have felt very loved. The people of Seville have shown me that affection. That is very comforting. That, in a moment of difficulty, you remember one, and you make him go through this emotional moment, I don’t know how to thank him. I am deeply overwhelmed by everything you have said.”
“To be really honest you would have to put some little songs too. As a person I also have things that I blame myself and I’m not happy for having done them. The part that I like most about this act, this recognition, is not what you said, but what you told me in Pamplona. That you not only rewarded my football career, those numbers, but that you valued my person, my attitude, and that is priceless. Feeling that you do not forget that footballers are normal people, is very much appreciated, ”he added.
Unzué did not want to forget to talk about his new team, that of ALS patients, and express his gratitude to many of them. “I don’t want to forget my current team, the one for ALS patients. My goal in life is to make this disease visible, to inform you of its consequences and what the harsh reality of most of my colleagues is. With an act like this, you are making it possible for ALS to be a little more accessible to everyone”.
“Life is worth living despite all limitations. It is told to you by someone who feels inspired by other fellow patients, in more advanced stages than mine, they inspire me to move forward and continue showing that smile, which I have naturally, and I will try to maintain until the last day. When I am not here, I would like you to remember me with this smile that I have today and I hope to have until the last day, as a consequence of feeling useful. I am doing it in a very different way to how I have done it most of my life, but I can tell you that it is as satisfying or more so than in my career as a footballer and coach”, Unzué concluded in an emotional speech.
Lopetegui’s emotional speech
The current Sevilla coach, a Julen Lopetegui who coincided with Unzué in the lower categories of the Spanish team, was very close, affectionate and affable with the Navarrese, recalling moments when both were practically children. “I was prepared to say, but I prefer to talk about us. About how inspiring you are and what you are going to become, for what you have done on the field and for what you are doing now”.
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“When you were 18 years old, you hid in my house to escape from the journalists when you signed for Barcelona. We spent a month in the former Soviet Union, which seems to want to do it again through the pain of many innocents, ”he indicated, allowing himself a license related to the Ukraine War. “We did not have in mind that you would become someone so exemplary, so inspiring.”
Lopetegui stressed how inspiring Juan Carlos Unzué is for him, and also acknowledges that he tries to transmit it wherever it is needed. “You took us to the limit in training and you take us to the limit in how to deal with day to day. You are an example and I try to pass it on to my players”.
“You are my hero Juan Carlos, absolutely, my hero of flesh and blood, you are an example, I thank you for what you represent, for how you represent it. I love you very much ”, Julen Lopetegui concluded his emotional speech.
Monchi, his substitute, his friend
Unzué left his mark on Sevilla, but especially on the one where he was his substitute during the seven seasons he was at Nervión. In Ramón Rodríguez Verdejo ‘Monchi’, the current Sevilla sports director, who took the microphone to talk about his relationship with the man who blocked his place in the goal.
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“I am going to tell a story. I spent seven years with Juan Carlos and I had the opportunity to live with him and grow. I wanted to be Juan Carlos Unzué, he was a mirror in which to look at himself for a newcomer from the subsidiary like me, I always tried to do the same as him. I drink sparkling water because Juan Carlos hit me, I use the same cologne that I used with him, the boots, the gloves… all I was trying to improve, grow, was paying attention to him. It was difficult to come to all the training sessions knowing that I was not going to play and my career as a goalkeeper has a lot to do with trying to resemble him. I wanted to be Juan Carlos Unzué and now I also want to be Juan Carlos because he has given us an example of focusing on life, he has us to serve. Thank you for what you gave me in the past and thank you for what you are giving us in the present and in the future,” Monchi said in an emotional speech, followed by planting a kiss on the forehead of Unzué, his great reference.